I agree with the other longer responses here, which is that many of us (myself included) already have a network of friends that are able to help out in this regard - but it is also clear that there are other collectors who have not developed their own network yet!

My personal goal here would be to assist other fans and collectors in building their own network of friends and acquaintances, with a little help getting off the ground from the more established fans around here (for example). I don't see this as able to work at large scale in an impersonal, business-like mode of operation.

The sense I get is that 99% of the readers here (most of whom are silent members, and don't post much if at all) would not be comfortable asking any of us for help out of the blue. But if there is a short list of willing helpers in various locations, that could be the seed to allow new relationships to start from.

So a follow-up question: if you were a "volunteer", how comfortable would you be with a request from an unknown person? Would you (a) not want to help in that case, (b) be willing to help out anyways, or (c) want some sort of safety net in cases of lost shipments/fraudulent claims of lost shipments, etc.? Again email or PM are fine if you don't want to share your answer with the world.

If whatever we end up with is a closed network of trusted people, we already have that and don't really need to do anything.